Masters Theses
Date of Award
5-2011
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Major
English
Major Professor
Allen Dunn
Committee Members
Urmila Seshagiri, Amy Elias
Abstract
This work asks how and for whom humiliation can be therapeutic. J. M. Coetzee, in his works Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K and Disgrace, does not simply critique the mentality of Empire, an “Enlightenment” or colonialist mode of knowing that knows no bounds to reason, but offers an alternative through the Magistrate, Michael K and David Lurie, all of whom are brutally shamed and “abjected”. Each character, I propose, experiences a Lacanian “therapy of humiliation” resulting in a subversion of their egos, which they come to understand as antagonistic, a site of misrecognition. In doing so, these characters confront limitation, whether by means of a Lacanian “death drive” or the abjection of the self. I argue, this subversion of their egos necessitates a return to the humility of the body resulting in a new ethical openness to others and an engagement with the world through “care” or “love” or “beauty” which manifests as careful negotiation and attentiveness. Confrontation with death, thus, allows the Magistrate, Michael K and David Lurie to slough off “Enlightenment” values in favor of an anti-humanist way of living.
Recommended Citation
Mangat, Ajitpaul Singh, "The Therapy of Humiliation: Towards an Ethics of Humility in the works of J.M. Coetzee. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2011.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/896
Included in
Continental Philosophy Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Other Psychiatry and Psychology Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons